


Can’t

by languageintostillair



Series: After an Almost [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cersei Lannister and Jaime Lannister Are Not Related, Established Relationship, F/M, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Self-Esteem Issues, are through the roof for both of them, but i'm warning you it hurts a whole damn lot for most of this, though i guess in a way this is also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24659086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/languageintostillair/pseuds/languageintostillair
Summary: “What’s wrong with me?” she struggles to say. “I can’t—I don’t know how to—”“There’s nothingwrong, I shouldn’t have—I’m the one that, that fucked up. I shouldn’t have said any of the things I said.”That isn’t right. That isn’t the right thing to do. That’s exactly what they’ve been doing—not sayinganything, not telling the truth, notfacingit—and it was thewrong thing. They knew it was the wrong thing, and they still did it. It’s exactly what brought them to this point.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: After an Almost [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662541
Comments: 45
Kudos: 118





	Can’t

**Author's Note:**

> I've been agonising over this for so many days that I can't tell if it makes sense anymore

Brienne doesn’t sleep that night.

She _can’t_. She can’t stop running through their entire argument in her mind, over and over and over again. She unstitches everything at the start and close of each sentence, rearranges every word, stitches them back together, rips it all apart at the seams. She imagines and re-imagines all the ways she could have responded to Jaime, raged at him, refuted him, reassured him.

_The truth is, I don’t feel safe to you._

_You do. I feel safe with you.  
_ _I trust you._

_After all this time, you’re still afraid of me._

_I’m not. I swear, I’m not.  
_ _I’ve never shared so much of myself  
_ _with anyone else._

 _I don’t want you to settle for me just because  
_ _you think you won’t find someone else  
_ _who will love you._

 _That’s not true.  
_ _How could you?  
_ _How could you even think that?_

 _Maybe you were doing it because  
_ _you thought_ you _deserved it._

 _Fuck you.  
_ _How dare you?_

 _You want me to leave just to prove to yourself  
_ _that this won’t work out for you._

 _I don’t… that’s not what I…  
_ _… is that what I’ve been doing?_

 _You don’t get to use me to  
_ _prove that you can’t be loved._

_I don’t—I’m not—_

_I love you._

_I—_

_I love you._

_I…_

It’s almost five in the morning.

How is it almost five in the morning?

She hasn’t slept at all. What day is it today? Friday? _Fuck._ She has to be at work in four hours, and she can barely think straight. She can’t think of anything except what happened last night. She can’t go to work like _this_. Her brain is wrung out and fired up all at the same time, and there’s a feeling in her chest—

A feeling she hasn’t felt in a long time.

This heaviness. This terrifying, overwhelming _heaviness_.

She thought she was past this. She’d promised herself that she would never let herself feel this heaviness ever again.

_You want me to leave?  
_ _I’ll leave._

 _Don’t—_  
 _Don’t leave.  
_ _Please._

_He’s breaking up with me._

Did he?

Is that what happened?

She’d been wondering about it all night—worrying about it—avoiding the thought—convincing herself one way, then the other. Had he broken up with her? Should she call him? Text him? Give him space? He’d left her—was it just for one night? Or…

Or…?

She needs to do something. Something other than all this wondering, worrying, avoiding, convincing, _thinking, thinking, thinking_. It’s five thirty. She can’t sleep. She can—she can—she can run. She’ll go for a run. She changes into her workout clothes and— _shit_ , she has her sports bra on inside out—she drops her key ring on the floor— _fuck, I’m a mess_ —how could she possibly go to work today? Somehow—she can’t decide if this makes her want to laugh or cry—she has the presence of mind to type up a brief email to her boss. _I’m so sorry, I seem to have come down with something._ It’s not a lie. She’ll be useless at work, anyway. She reads the email ten times to make sure it’s suitably polite, as suitably polite as she can manage in her state, then hits send—at five thirty in the morning, _fuck_ —and heads out the door.

It’s six fifteen. Wasn’t it just five-thirty? But she’s panting, so she must have been running for a while. It’s still dark. Where is she? This street looks familiar. Has she been running in circles? She looks around and—

That’s Jaime’s building. Across the road.

Should she?

Jaime’s building is right in front of her. She has the keys—they’d exchanged keys to their apartments weeks ago—so she could just…

Should she call?

It’s six twenty-five. If this was any other day, he wouldn’t be awake for another hour. Did he sleep? Was he able to?

She’s in the lift.

Maybe she shouldn’t—

She’s at his front door.

She half expects him to be standing there when she unlocks it.

He isn’t. He’s definitely home—all his shoes are on the shoe rack, and his bedroom door is closed, which it only ever is when he’s inside. She walks over to it, knocks softly.

No answer.

She doesn’t want to wake him up if he’s asleep—some poisonous part of her wonders how he was able to when she couldn’t—so she heads over to the living room to wait. Or she could go into his kitchen to make coffee. She’s so _exhausted_. She spots her reflection in the mirror hanging on his living room wall, and _fuck._ She’s a mess. Her eyes are red—did she cry? She doesn’t remember crying. She can’t face him looking like this. She has to—

She’s in the guest bathroom.

Her clothes are on the floor.

She’s naked.

(She doesn’t look in the mirror.)

She’s in the shower.

She stands under the running water for far too long before she even reaches for the bottle of shampoo.

She’s almost done by the time she realises she didn’t think to bring in a change of clothes.

 _Fuck_.

She turns off the shower, steps out.

She has clean clothes in Jaime’s apartment, but they’re in his _bedroom_. She’ll have to go into his _bedroom_ to get them. _Fuck_ —she has the option of wrapping herself in a towel, or putting her sweaty clothes back on again. Irrationally—and she _knows_ it’s irrational—the latter feels like the lesser of two discomforts. What would it look like, if Jaime woke up to her with just a towel around her, after what happened between them last night?

She’s just about to pull on her shirt when there’s a knock at the door.

“Brienne,” she hears Jaime say. _Shit._ She’s standing there with her sweaty shirt in her hand, water dripping down her face, her body. _Hold on_ , she tries to call out to him, but no sound comes out. She grabs her towel—thank Seven he has towels in here—wipes herself once over and wraps it as tightly around her chest as she can.

She opens the door a crack. Jaime’s standing there with a change of clothes in his hands, and if it’s clicked in his head that this is the first time he’s seen her in just a towel, it doesn’t register on his face.

“I thought—you might need these,” he mumbles. “Sorry I had to…” He looks down at the pair of underwear sitting on top of the stack.

“Oh.” She’s glad her face is already heated from the shower. “That’s okay. Thank you.”

She reaches an arm awkwardly through the gap, and grabs the clothes from him. “I’m sorry I—I came without asking.”

He shrugs. “I gave you the keys.”

She has to ask him now, though it’s through a crack in the door, and she’s in nothing more than a towel. She needs to _know_.

“So we’re… we’re still… we didn’t break up, did we?”

His eyes grow wide. “ _What?_ No! Gods, no. Did you—”

“I thought you might have—I thought I—”

“That wasn’t a—I’m sorry, I know I left, but I—” He sighs. “We’ll talk about it when you’re done, okay? I—I’m going to call in sick today.”

She nods. “I already emailed—”

“Good. I mean—not _good_ , but—”

“I know.”

“Alright. I’ll let you…” He lifts a finger towards her, and she remembers she’s in nothing more than a towel, and she shuts the door without saying another word.

When she opens the door again, Jaime isn’t there. Not in the kitchen, or the living room. She hangs her workout clothes in his laundry room so she can wash them later, and heads towards his bedroom, where the door is slightly ajar. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his phone, and looks up at her when she enters. “Sorry. I was just checking my schedule—”

“It’s fine if you need to go to work.”

“No—no, I can manage. I think we should—we should talk.”

Brienne feels, all of a sudden, like that’s the last thing in the world that she wants to do. She’d come here—her body had brought her here, it seemed, while her mind was barely aware of it—but she’s so tired. She hasn’t slept. It seems ridiculous—it was _one_ argument—but it felt like fifty. It felt like all the conversations they should have had these past five months, compressed into one painful night.

She walks towards him, sits on the bed next to him. Gingerly puts her chin on his shoulder like she’s learned to do of her own accord, has to stop herself from sighing with relief when he doesn’t flinch beneath her. “I’m tired, Jaime,” she whispers. “I haven’t slept.”

“Me neither.”

He didn’t sleep. But he didn’t answer the door just now. “Did you hear me knock?” she asks. “When I first came?”

“… I did. But I—I wasn’t… I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t expect you to come.”

She doesn’t know what to say either, and perhaps they’ll have a better idea if they’ve both had some sleep. It would be so easy to just collapse on the bed right now. But then she thinks of what triggered their argument last night. Beds, in hotel rooms. _Sharing_ beds. No, they should talk. Talking is the right thing to do, doesn’t she know that already? Shouldn’t she have learnt her lesson by now? They could sleep, but it would be like… like going to bed while their house is burning down. She gets to her feet—off the bed—and Jaime takes hold of her hand. She looks at him and—he knows. He knows that the right thing to do is to talk.

“Coffee?” he offers. “I can make coffee.”

“Okay.”

Later, two cups of coffee freshly brewed, they sit themselves side-by-side at the kitchen island.

They each take a sip.

Then another.

And another.

They’re more than halfway through when, practically at the same time, they both say “I’m sorry,” and Brienne finds she’s just so _sick of it_. Not because she shouldn’t apologise, but because she’s just—she’s so sick of fucking up and saying sorry for it later. It doesn’t fix _anything_. She doesn’t know how they’re going to fix anything.

She doesn’t know how to fix _herself_.

“I’m sorry I left,” Jaime says. “It wasn’t—I was—”

“I told you to. I shouldn’t have. I don’t… I don’t know what came over me.”

 _Fuck._ She’s crying already. They’ve barely started and she’s crying already. She puts her hands over her eyes, holds them there, as if she could push all her tears back in with the heels of her palms. Jaime calls her name from somewhere far away, and she feels his hand on her back, and she wishes she could just—she wishes she could just give all of herself to him. Why does it seem so easy for everyone else? Why is it so much easier for her to push him away?

“What’s wrong with me?” she struggles to say. “I can’t—I don’t know how to—”

“There’s nothing _wrong_ , I shouldn’t have—I’m the one that, that fucked up. I shouldn’t have said any of the things I said.”

That isn’t right. That isn’t the right thing to do. That’s exactly what they’ve been doing—not saying _anything_ , not telling the truth, not _facing_ it—and it was the _wrong thing_. They knew it was the wrong thing, and they still did it. It’s exactly what brought them to this point. And Jaime can’t just take it back. What he’d said—there was a _reason_ why it slipped out.

“You said you _deserved_ it, Jaime.”

“I told you, just forget what I said—”

“We _can’t_. Even if I didn’t mean to make you feel that way, it’s what you _felt_. We can’t just… pretend it never happened.”

“That’s on me, okay?” Jaime reaches for her hand, holds it on the counter between them. “I’m just—I got so fucking used to Cersei’s bullshit. And I’d—back then, I never wanted to talk about it because I didn’t want to, to upset her. I didn’t want to believe that she’d do that to me. And I _don’t_ believe that you’d hurt me. Not that way. I _don’t_ , and I was a fool for saying it—”

“Don’t say that,” Brienne snaps. She doesn’t know why it makes her so angry—not at _Jaime_ , of course not—but it _does_. “You’re not stupid, and you’re not a fool.”

“I am—”

“ _Jaime_ ,” and she always knew that he’d struggled with this, with _not being enough_ , but she knew it only in this hazy, indeterminate way, from the years of their friendship and the months of their relationship, from getting this strange sense of recognition and understanding and _yes, I know exactly how you feel, because sometimes, when I’m naked, I can’t bring myself to look in the mirror._ “She hurt you. That is on _her_ , not you.”

He meets her eyes, and there’s some realisation in it, and Brienne has to wonder if he’d only just made the connection between all those years he’d spent with Cersei, and this idea of himself that he’d thought of as an unassailable truth for so long. Then, he tightens his grip on her hand and says:

“I hurt you.”

“Jaime—”

“ _I hurt you._ Before you left for Winterfell. Is this—is this because of me?”

“No! I—I don’t—I don’t _blame_ you for—”

“You _should_.”

“No, it’s just, it’s what happens—” _Sometimes you fall in love with someone who—_

“I shouldn’t have—fuck. At the gym, I—”

 _The gym?_ “What are you _talking_ about?”

“I was—when we first spoke, at the gym, I—I don’t know. I don’t know what I wanted.”

“I don’t understand—”

“You know how I—I would have, I’d considered it. You and me. If things hadn’t—”

She knows this. He’d told her she hadn’t given him a chance, back then, and she knows that it would have been a disaster even if she had. But she thought that was—she thought that was _later_. Not as early as—

_This is what normal people do, right? Introduce themselves this way?_

She wrests her hand from his. “Fuck. Jaime—what the fuck.” _What the fuck._ “What are you _saying_?”

“I don’t—”

“You weren’t over her then. You weren’t even _close_ to being over her—”

“I was _trying_. I—”

“I was your _rebound_?”

“ _No_.” He pushes his chair back—the sound of it scraping against the floor _deafens_ her—and stands next to her. “I wasn’t—I just—fuck. I thought you were—I just wanted something in my life to change. And I saw you, and I recognised you, and then I saw you again and I thought— _fuck_ , maybe I thought it was a sign or something. And then we ended up getting along, and… and our friendship—it felt safe. You didn’t seem to—you didn’t seem to want anything more, and it felt _safe_.”

“It felt _safe_? Fucking hells, Jaime.” _That whole time—_ “I can’t—” she gets down from her seat, walks towards—towards— “I can’t do this.”

“Are you _leaving_?”

“I’m—”

She doesn’t know where else to go. She runs into his bedroom, and slams the door.

It’s almost noon. That’s what the clock on the bedside table says.

How is it almost noon? What day is it today? Friday? Why isn’t she at work?

Where is she? This isn’t her room. This isn’t her bed.

It—

It smells of the sweater.

It smells of _Jaime_.

Jaime who had—

She remembers.

_This is what normal people do, right? Introduce themselves this way?_

Everything is different.

Everything from five years ago is different.

There’s a knock at the door.

She ignores it.

She doesn’t know what to say.

It’s one thirty. Wasn’t it just noon?

There’s another knock at the door.

She ignores it.

The door opens anyway.

She wants to tell him to go away, even though it’s selfish, and petulant. Even though it’s his room, his bed.

“Brienne.”

She turns away from him.

She feels the bed sink beneath her.

(She wants to tell him never to leave.)

(She hates herself for this.)

She can feel him moving behind her, shifting closer to her.

“Brienne. I’m sorry.”

She’s on her back. She can see him out of the corner of her eye. She tells the ceiling that she’s tired of apologies.

“What do you want me to say?”

That isn’t the right question to ask. Or maybe it is. What does she want? To change what happened five years ago? Two and a half years ago? Does she wish she’d never met him? He’d dragged her into—

What had he dragged her into? He never told her about Cersei. They were friends, that was all. What did it matter that he was—that he’d thought about it, about being _more than_ , much earlier than she’d assumed?

All those times he’d touched her like he _wanted_ to—

“I think I knew,” she says.

She is still looking at the ceiling. Avoiding Jaime. He disappears from her field of vision, then there’s the soft sound of him resting his head on the pillow next to her.

“About what?” he asks.

“I think I knew—you’d considered it. I could tell, somehow. And I don’t know if I would have allowed myself to… to develop those feelings. If I hadn’t known.”

She doesn’t know if she’d call that leading her on. She doesn’t think Jaime meant to. They’d simply cared for each other in the only ways they knew how. In the only ways that felt safe to them at the time. But something about Jaime—about the way he’d acted with her—it made it feel so _possible_ , with him. More possible than she’d ever experienced. And she gave herself permission to go that much further than what she thought was safe, at least on the inside, even if she couldn’t help but guard against him on the outside like she’d always guarded against everyone.

That feeling of possibility—of _intimacy_ —it wasn’t his fault, necessarily. It was just his _way_. There was his way, and hers, and there was the way in which that had come together, overlapped, missed each other entirely.

She tells the ceiling she doesn’t know how to get over it.

“Over—how I’ve hurt you?”

“Over everything.”

How can she explain it? How can she explain that it’s everything, everything that had happened, even before Jaime was in her life? And later, when he was; and after, when she’d left for Winterfell; and now, when they’re back together again? It’s everything, all tangled up, and _gods_ , how could she ever have thought that going north was _disentanglement_? The problem is—the problem wasn’t Jaime, it’s—

“Do you think you can… forgive me?” he asks.

It’s unreasonable, she knows. What is there to forgive? What had Jaime done to her, _actually_ done to her? Nothing, really. He’d rejected her once, but she couldn’t blame him for that. That isn’t how it works. Sometimes you fall in love with someone who can’t love you back.

( _I love you_ , he’d said.)

“I… I don’t know what to forgive you _for_.”

“But—there’s something to forgive?”

“I… I don’t know.”

She feels…

Betrayed.

 _Oh._ Is that what this feeling is? But why? What for? He’d promised her nothing. He’d never promised her anything, back then. And she’d used him too, hadn’t she? To feel close to someone. Just—not too close. She had settled for the little happiness he had given her. That she’d _allowed_ him to give her.

_I don’t want you to settle for me because you—you think you won’t find someone else who will love you._

“Jaime. I don’t think I…”

_How can I say it?_

“… What?” he urges.

“I don’t think I know how to—to be _wanted_.”

She hears a long exhale. Nothing more.

“I don’t—I don’t know what to _do with it_ ,” she continues. “I never thought I could be… desired, in any way. And I’d accepted that as just—a fact. It was just… so much easier, that way.”

It isn’t _what-ifs_ , this time. It’s _if-onlys_. It’s how she’d taught herself _not_ to think of the _if-onlys_ , of all these things that she can’t change about herself. It’s so exhausting, otherwise—wondering if all of it is her fault, because of _her_ body. But it’s a body that she can’t change, and it only makes her feel worse to wish— _if only_.

 _If only he could want me the way I want him to want me._ That’s what she’d never allowed herself to think, back then, which meant she thought of it all the time. And now—now that she doesn’t have to wish for it any longer—

Perhaps Jaime had used her as… as shelter. As respite, from Cersei. But hadn’t she kept him at arm’s length, so she could have all the good parts—no, all the _safe_ parts? So she _wouldn’t_ have to feel wanted? So she could prove to herself that she couldn’t be?

_You don’t get to use me to prove that you can’t be loved._

He was right.

He still hasn’t said anything.

This is the end, isn’t it? She can’t fix—

His hand is on her belly.

It’s warm. _Safe._ She wants to remember this always. Why is it so easy to forget that Jaime is _safe_? All of him?

“Is there anything I can do?” he says. “To help you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not—I’m not in a rush for anything.”

“And I appreciate that, Jaime, I really do. But I… I think you were right. I don’t know if it’s a matter of time.” That’s what she’d assumed all these months. But it isn’t just about _getting used to the idea_ , is it? She’s _delaying_ it, because deep down, she thinks— “I think I’m afraid—I’m afraid that _after_ , you’ll decide—you’ll realise—”

“I _won’t_.”

He sounds so _sure_. She turns her head towards him for the first time since he came into the room. He’s so _beautiful_. And she’s so—

“How can you be _sure_ , Jaime?”

His hand leaves her belly, and comes up to brush her cheek. “I love you, Brienne.”

Is that enough?

He lets his hand rest on her neck. “Do you believe me when I say it?”

She tenses, and he feels it; there’s a furrow between his brows that wasn’t there a second ago.

“Do you think you can?” he asks. “Love me?”

Not _do you love me_ , but— _do you think you can love me?_ _Are you able to, even if you don’t love me now?_

“I… I don’t know if I know what that means.”

His frown deepens. _Shit_. She’s not doing this right. Gently, she puts a hand on his ribs. Does he think her touch is warm, and safe too? Does he find comfort in it? Is there some part of it that scares him, the way his touch scares her?

“Once,” she tries to explain, “I think I thought—I thought I did. Love you. I thought it was something close to it, anyway. But everything got so… confused. And painful. And disappointing, and tiring. When I think of love, I—all those bad things come back. Bad feelings. And I don’t want to—to love you like that.”

Jaime nods. “I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“I think I felt like that with… with her. I think it’s why I couldn’t—I didn’t know what to do with us. It felt so different, I could barely recognise it.” He brings his hand back up to her face, swipes his thumb over her cheekbone. “But in a way, I suppose it _is_ easier, for me—to know this is better. To tell the difference. I can push her away, but—you have to look at me and see the same person that caused all your pain.”

Even so— “You still believed I was… hurting you _intentionally_. The same way she did. There’s still some part of you that can’t tell the difference.”

His fingers trace the arc of her ear, back, and forth. “I don’t know if it’s because I _can’t_. I think I just—I’m so used to expecting it. To be hurt in that way. Just like you’re so used to expecting—”

He trails off. Like he can’t bring himself to say it.

She closes her eyes, lets the tears spill over. She doesn’t have the strength to care that Jaime’s hand is right there, on her cheek, and how it must be wet now from her tears. “What does it mean, Jaime? What does it mean that we could be together for months, believing we’d be hurt by each other?”

“I don’t know.” His thumb brushes across her lashes. “But maybe… Maybe that’s part of it.”

She opens her eyes again.

“There’s always a chance,” he says. “A chance that we might hurt each other. I suppose we can’t avoid that. But isn’t all of this—isn’t part of it opening ourselves up to the _possibility_ of being hurt?”

_What if it’s good? What if we could make it good?_

That’s what he’d asked her. That’s the chance—the _risk_ —he’d asked her to take. It doesn’t mean all those other _what-ifs_ , the bad ones, no longer exist. Or that they can’t hurt her still. She knew that—they’ve been so _careful_ —but maybe they _haven’t_. Because—

“I’m hurting myself, Jaime. I think I’m hurting myself to, to protect myself from being hurt, which makes _no sense_.”

It’s so far beyond simply _opening up to a possibility_. It’s resigning herself to it. Hurting herself, because it’s familiar, and it feels far safer than having Jaime do it. Why are those her only two options—hurting herself, or being hurt by Jaime? And now—

“It’s hurting you too," she says. “But I… I don’t know how to stop.”

“I suppose I’ve been doing the same,” Jaime sighs. “I thought it was _care_ , or _love_ , but maybe it was fear. Avoidance.”

“How… how do we move past that? How can we stop that fear from _consuming_ us?”

“I don’t know.” He moves his hand down to rest on her neck. “But I’ve been thinking, since last night. About what it means to… to deserve something.”

 _Maybe you were doing it because you thought_ you _deserved it._

“I don’t know if I have it all figured out,” he continues. “I just wondered—maybe we both deserve better than we think.”

“Deserve better… with each other?”

“Yeah. Maybe we need to start _believing_ it. I’m not—Brienne, I’m not _settling_ for you. I swear. And I—I worry about it, but most of the time, I don’t think you’re settling for me either. But we’re settling for—for a worse version of this relationship than we should, you know?”

Her hand has been resting on his ribs for a long time. She shifts it to his shoulder blade; dares to bring herself closer to him; lets him bring his hand down from her neck to her waist.

“Can we make it better?” she asks. “Can we fix this?”

He brings his forehead to hers. “I guess the question is… do you think it’s worth fixing?”

She wants to think so. To believe it.

She doesn’t want to be afraid.

She nods—the skin of her forehead rubs against his—and he smiles. There’s relief in his eyes. And softness. And joy—

No. Not joy.

She thinks, maybe, this is love.

“Okay,” he says. “So do I.”

It’s five in the afternoon.

They haven’t left his bed. Jaime’s still asleep, his head on her belly facing away from her, and she’s counting the greys in his hair, the ones that weren’t there two and a half years ago. He might be drooling on her, but she doesn’t care.

 _He’s so beautiful_ , is a thought that comes to her mind again, though she can’t see his face right now. But also: _it wouldn’t matter if he wasn’t._

Jaime might be offended—she’s smiling just thinking about how he might react if she told him—but she hadn’t fallen for him for his beauty. If anything, his beauty was what scared her. That sense of possibility—of being loved, and of being hurt too—it had grown out of all the ways he seemed to understand her. Encourage her. Even tease her, and annoy her. The ways he seemed to say, not _I want you_ , but _I want to be around you. I want to know you._

_I do know you._

They’re still not sure what they’ll do next. Not the specifics, anyway. Talk to someone, probably, a professional—together and maybe even separately. But they’d got to that point, at least. That willingness to fix it. That’s something, right?

Her stomach growls, reminding her that she hasn’t eaten all day. Immediately after, she feels another rumble in her belly—no, _on_ her belly, though it seems to run deeper than her hunger. It’s Jaime. Jaime laughing.

“You’re awake,” she says.

“I’m awake,” he replies. “I think I drooled on you.”

“That’s okay.”

He smiles. She can’t see him smile, but she knows he’s smiling, and not just because she can feel it on her belly. Because she knows him. She knows him the way he knows her. “Don’t leave me over it,” he jokes. But there’s that whisper of uncertainty— _don’t break up with me, Brienne. We’re going to make this better, right?_

_Right?_

She runs her fingers through this hair. “I won’t leave you over drooling. That would be silly.”

Jaime turns to face her, lets his eyes linger on her. He’s not smiling anymore. _Don’t leave me_ , he seems to say, _even for the reasons that aren’t so silly._

“I won’t,” she repeats, without the rest of it.

Something in him relaxes, and his smile returns. “Hey,” he says, one of his hands reaching up to find hers.

“Yeah?”

“Have I ever told you you have astonishing eyes?”

“All the time,” she laughs. “Aren’t you tired of saying it?”

“Just want to make sure you remember.”

“I remember.”

Another growl. This time, it’s Jaime’s stomach protesting. “Dinner?” he asks, patting his belly with his free hand.

“Dinner,” she agrees.

But Jaime doesn’t move off her. Instead, he brings her hand up to his lips, and presses his mouth to it.

“Stay here tonight,” he tells her. “Stay with me.”

He’d just asked her not to leave, though he’d meant it in much broader terms. But perhaps he’s asking her in broader terms now, too. And _staying_ —making the _choice_ to stay—there’s something in it that’s different than _not leaving_ , isn’t there?

“Alright,” Brienne whispers. “I’ll stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> THEY'RE GOING TO THERAPY AND I'M NOT WRITING IT.
> 
> I have one more part planned, but I think the story ends fairly well at this point, if you're not... you know... interested in reading smut or whatever............... :)
> 
> Thanks to [Roccolinde](https://https://archiveofourown.org/users/roccolinde) and [jencat](https://https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat) for the handholding! And I'm on [Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/)!


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